Martin v. Mabus

• Decision Date: 27 February 1990
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. J84-0708(B),J85-0960(B).
• Citation: 734 F. Supp. 1216
• Parties: Floydist James MARTIN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Ray MABUS, Governor of Mississippi, et al., Defendants. Henry KIRKSEY, et al., on Behalf of Themselves and all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs, v. Ray MABUS, Governor of Mississippi, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Mississippi

734 F. Supp. 1216

Floydist James MARTIN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Ray MABUS, Governor of Mississippi, et al., Defendants.

Henry KIRKSEY, et al., on Behalf of Themselves and all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs, v. Ray MABUS, Governor of Mississippi, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. Nos. J84-0708(B), J85-0960(B).

United States District Court, S.D. Mississippi, Jackson Division.

February 27, 1990.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Ellis Turnage, Morris and Turnage, Cleveland, Miss., Julius L. Chambers, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, New York City, Robert B. McDuff, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, Washington, D.C., Pamela S. Karlan, NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., New York City, Lynda C. Robinson, Jackson, Miss., for plaintiffs.

James Craig, Jackson, Miss., for Hinds County Democratic Executive Comm.

Charles H. Evans, Jackson, Miss., for Hinds County Repub. Ex. Comm.

Stephen J. Kirchmayr, Office of Atty. Gen., Jackson, Miss., for State defendants.

Hubbard T. Saunders, IV, Crosthwait Terney & Noble, Jackson, Miss., for State defendants and Yazoo County Election Comm.

Wiley J. Barbour, Henry Barbour & Decell, Yazoo City, Miss., for Yazoo County Republican Exec. Comm.

Carroll Rhodes, Hazlehurst, Miss., Johnnie L. Walls, Jr., Walls Buck & Irving, Greenville, Miss., Samuel Issacharoff, Guerrieri Edmond James, University of Tx. Law School, Austin, Tex., for Kirksey, et al., plaintiffs.

Stephen L. Thomas, Mansour and Thomas, Greenville, Miss., Landman Teller, Jr., Teller Chaney & Rector, Vicksburg, Miss., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

BARBOUR, Chief Judge.

This cause is before the Court on Motion of the consolidated Plaintiffs for an award of attorney's fees and litigation expenses pursuant to both Section 14(e) of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973l (e), and the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1988. The Defendant has responded to the Motion. The Court, having considered the Motion and response, together with memoranda of authorities, affidavits and other attachments thereto submitted by the parties, makes these findings of fact and draws these conclusions of law:

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Invoking the Court's federal question and civil rights subject matter jurisdiction, the named Martin and Kirksey plaintiffs, black citizens and registered voters of the State of Mississippi, brought these two consolidated voting rights actions individually and on behalf of two Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(b)(2) plaintiff classes challenging the at-large, numbered-post methods used to elect the county judges in Harrison, Hinds and Jackson Counties, Mississippi. Plaintiffs also challenged the multi-member district method used to elect chancellors and circuit judges from separate places in certain Mississippi Chancery and Circuit Court Districts.

The Plaintiffs further alleged that the challenged Mississippi election statutes violated their rights secured by sections 2 and 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as amended in 1982, 42 U.S.C. § 1973, the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in that said state election statutes (1) had not been precleared as allegedly required by section 5, (2) were allegedly adopted and were allegedly being maintained for the racially discriminatory purpose of diluting, minimizing, and cancelling out black voting strength, and (3) allegedly resulted in a denial or abridgement of the right of plaintiffs and other black citizens to elect candidates of their choice.

The Plaintiffs requested and were granted the convening of a three-judge district court to hear and determine their section 5 claims. By order filed on April 3, 1986, the three-judge district court determined that section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 applied to the election of state court judges and enjoined the defendants from implementing the challenged statutes unless and until they were precleared under section 5. Kirksey v. Allain, 635 F.Supp. 347 (S.D. Miss.1986). The panel, by order of May 28, 1986, granted the plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction and enjoined the defendants from conducting elections for the offices of circuit and chancery judge in the challenged districts in the State of Mississippi and for the office of county judge only in the counties of Harrison, Hinds and Jackson.

By letter dated July 1, 1986, the U.S. Attorney General interposed a section 5 objection to the utilization of the post feature for the election of judges in certain judicial districts which became multi-judge for the first time after November 1, 1964, the effective date of section 5 coverage for Mississippi. The section 5 claims were thereafter disposed of by consent decree, and the injunction of the three-judge panel was lifted.

With regard to the Plaintiffs' section 2 claims, this Court initially enjoined judicial elections statewide. Following discovery, the consolidation of the Martin and Kirksey actions pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 42, a pretrial conference, and entry of a pretrial order, these cases were tried before the United States District Judge, without a jury, from March 9 to March 13, 1987, in Jackson, Mississippi. After considering the evidence and arguments of counsel, the Court held that the Plaintiffs had established a section 2 violation in the 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th Chancery Court Districts, the 4th, 7th, and 11th Circuit Court Districts and the Hinds County Court District. The Court held, however, that in spite of specific findings of racial bloc voting and other factors regarding the remaining districts, the 14th Chancery Court District, the 9th and 16th Circuit Court Districts, and the Harrison County and Jackson County Court Districts, there was no section 2 violation as to those districts because the Court could not establish an appropriate remedy because blacks were not in such concentrations as to constitute a sufficiently large and geographically compact group for which single-member districts of substantially equal population could be drawn.¹

Thereafter, the Court held a hearing to determine the proper remedies to be implemented to correct the section 2 violations regarding judicial elections in the violating districts. After receiving alternative proposals, the Court, after consultation with a court-appointed expert, adopted a plan whereby the multi-member, at-large election districts were divided into single-member subdistricts, with one judge to be elected from each. The statewide injunction was thereafter lifted, and elections were ordered in compliance, where respectively applicable, with the consent decree, the remedial plan of the Court, or state law.

THE FEE QUESTION: LEGAL ISSUES

The entitlement of the Plaintiffs to a court award of reasonable attorney's fees and litigation expenses, or lack thereof, is determined by reference to both section 14(e) of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1973l(e), and the Civil Rights Attorney's Fees Awards Act of 1976, 42 U.S.C. § 1988. 42 U.S.C. § 1973l (e) provides:

In any action or proceeding to enforce the voting guarantees of the fourteenth or fifteenth amendments, the Court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorney's fee as part of the costs.

Likewise, section 1988 provides in relevant part: In any action or proceeding to enforce a provision of sections 1981, 1982, 1984, 1985, and 1986 of this title, title IX of public law 92-318, or title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Court, in its discretion, may allow the prevailing party, other than the United States, a reasonable attorneys' fee as part of the costs.

In enacting both of these statutes, Congress directed that prevailing parties "should ordinarily recover an attorneys' fee unless special circumstances would render an award unjust." S.Rep. No. 94-295, 94th Cong., 1st Sess. 40 (1975), reprinted in 1975 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 774, 807 (Section 1973l (e)); S.Rep. No. 94-1011, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 4 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News 5908, 5912.

The Plaintiffs have submitted their fee and expense request which, with a claimed enhancement, totals $1,321,297.68, in response to which the Defendants have alleged a plethora of "special circumstances" which they claim render an award of the amount sought by the Plaintiffs unjust. At the outset, therefore, the Court will address the legal objections raised by the Defendants and will then set forth a computation of the reasonable fees and expenses to which the Court finds the Plaintiffs are entitled.

1. Are the Plaintiffs "prevailing parties"? The standard for determining whether or not a party has prevailed in the context of civil rights litigation was recently set forth in Texas State Teachers Association v. Garland Independent School District, 489 U.S. ___, 109 S.Ct. 1486, 103 L.Ed.2d 866 (1989), wherein the Supreme Court rejected the "central issue" test that had been used by the Fifth, Eleventh and apparently the Sixth Circuits and adopted the "any significant issue" test used by the other courts of appeals. The Court held that in determining whether a civil rights plaintiff is a prevailing party, "the touchstone of the inquiry must be the material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties in a manner which Congress sought to promote in the fee statute. Where such a change has occurred, the degree of he plaintiff's overall success goes to the reasonableness of the award under Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 103 S.Ct. 1933, 76 L.Ed.2d 40 (1983), not to the availability of a fee award vel non." Garland, 489 U.S. at ___, 109 S.Ct. at 1494, 103 L.Ed.2d at 878.

In the instant case, the Plaintiffs have been overwhelmingly successful. The Defendants concede that the Plaintiffs are "prevailing parties," within the meaning of the act, but assert that the lodestar amount should be adjusted downward because of the allegedly "limited success" of the Plaintiffs. In...